Calling all Catholics: Let's offer prayers of reparation for Terence Weldon's blasphemy against Christ at "Queering the Church"

In a previous post I examined Terence Weldon's blasphemy against the Lord Jesus at his website "Queering the Church."  Specifically, Mr. Weldon was asserting that Jesus may have been a homosexual.  See here.  In another Blog post, an individual purporting to be a Catholic priest joined Mr. Weldon in his blasphemy.  Mr. Weldon proudly proclaims, while referring to his blog, "Here be Demons."



As New Advent Encyclopedia explains: "Blasphemy, by reason of the significance of the words with which it is expressed, may be of three kinds.


1.It is heretical when the insult to God involves a declaration that is against faith, as in the assertion: "God is cruel and unjust" or "The noblest work of man is God".

2.It is imprecatory when it would cry a malediction upon the Supreme Being as when one would say: "Away with God".

3.It is simply contumacious when it is wholly made up of contempt of, or indignation towards, God, as in the blasphemy of Julian the Apostate: "Thou has conquered, O Galilaean".

Again, blasphemy may be (1) either direct, as when the one blaspheming formally intends to dishonour the Divinity, or (2) indirect, as when without such intention blasphemous words are used with advertence to their import.

The malice of blasphemy

Blasphemy is a sin against the virtue of religion by which we render to God the honour due to Him as our first beginning and last end. St. Thomas says that it is to be regarded as a sin against faith inasmuch as by it we attribute to God that which does not belong to Him, or deny Him that which is His (II-II.13.1). De Lugo and others deny that this is an essential element in blasphemy (De just. et jure caeterisque virt. card., lib. II, c. xiv, disp. v, n. 26), but as Escobar (Theol. mor., lib. xxviii, c. xxxii, n. 716 sqq.) observes, the contention on this point concerns words only, since the followers of St. Thomas see in the contempt expressed in blasphemy the implication that God is contemptible--an implication in which all will allow there is attributed to God that which does not belong to Him. What is here said is of blasphemy in general; manifestly that form of the sin described above as heretical is not only opposed to the virtue of religion but that of faith as well. Blasphemy is of its whole nature (ex toto genere suo) a mortal sin, the gravest that may be committed against religion. The seriousness of an affront is proportioned to the dignity of the person towards whom it is directed. Since then the insult in blasphemy is offered to the ineffable majesty of God, the degree of its heinousness must be evident. Nevertheless because of slight or no advertence blasphemy may be either a venial sin only or no sin at all. Thus many expressions voiced in anger escape the enormity of a grave sin, except as is clear, when the anger is vented upon God. Again, in the case where blasphemous speech is uttered inadvertently, through force of habit, a grave sin is not committed as long as earnest resistance is made to the habit. If, however, no such effort is put forth there cannot but be grave guilt, though a mortal sin is not committed on the occasion of each and every blasphemous outburst. It has been said that heretical blasphemy besides a content directed against religion has that which is opposed to the virtue of faith. Similarly, imprecatory blasphemy is besides a violation of charity..."
It is clear that in his zeal to justify the homosexual lifestyle and inclination, Mr. Weldon will stop at nothing.  Including blaspheming against the Lord Jesus.  And so I call upon all Catholics who read this Blog post to offer prayers of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Let us begin with this prayer:


"O Jesus, my Savior and Redeemer, Son of the living God, behold, we kneel before Thee and offer Thee our reparation; we would make amends for all the blasphemies uttered against Thy holy name, for all the injuries done to Thee in the Blessed Sacrament, for all the irreverence shown toward Thine immaculate Virgin Mother, for all the calumnies and slanders spoken against Thy spouse, the holy Catholic and Roman Church. O Jesus, who has said: "If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you," we pray and beseech Thee for all our brethren who are in danger of sin; shield them from every temptation to fall away from the true faith; save those who are even now standing on the brink of the abyss; to all of them give light and knowledge of the truth, courage and strength for the conflict with evil, perseverance in faith and active charity! For this do we pray, most merciful Jesus, in Thy name, unto God the Father, with whom Thou livest and reignest in the unity of the Holy Ghost world without end. Amen."

And let us pray for Mr. Weldon.  For he is in dire need of our prayer.  His hatred for the Holy Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is so intense that, referring to the CDF document entitled "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," which says that the homosexual inclination is intrinsically disordered, he writes, "I just don’t buy that. The claim may be in the notorious CDF document, but anybody who is prepared to swallow every disordered statement on human sexuality from the Vatican, just because it has been written by sexually repressed, celibate theologians with no real-life experience of the subject they are able to admit to, is not living on the same planet as the rest of us. (See here).


Once again I urge the Church to address Mr. Terence Weldon's blasphemy and his hateful attacks against the teaching authority of the Church.

Terence Weldon's "Queering the Church" Website Continues to Blaspheme Against Christ

At his latest Blog post, radical homosexual activist and propagandist Terence Weldon insists that he is not guilty of blasphemy.  An individual purporting to be a Catholic priest and calling himself smply "FrJohnQ," left a comment at this post defending Mr. Weldon while criticizing me.  He writes:

"What's really telling to me about the attack on Terence as a 'blasphemer' is the definition of blasphemy that Paul Anthony Melanson uses: 'It consists in uttering against God...words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one's speech; in misusing God's name' (Catholic Catechism). Melanson assumes that by speculating that Jesus might have had a same-sex inclination Terence is being hateful, reproachful, and disrespectful toward God. My question is: Why? Why is it hateful to suggest that Jesus might have been what we now term "gay"? Why is it disrespectful? It's only so if you believe that being gay is a bad thing. Terence clearly does not, and neither do I, and neither, frankly, does God.

In my own prayer life I have a sense of a Jesus who was not gay, but perhaps this is simply a failure of my own imagination. Jesus was, as Terence points out, fully human; this means that he was (and is) a sexual being and that he loved, though selflessly. To make Jesus sexless is to deny his humanity. In any case, if someone labels me as gay--which I am--I do not take this as a gesture of disrespect, hatred, or reproach. I take it as an accurate estimation and as a compliment.

Why would God be offended by being associated with gay people? He socialized during his time on earth with others seen by many as outcast and inferior--prostitutes, tax collectors, etc. Would he not now sit down for a fabulous banquet with the gays? Why not? God loves us."

Now, I never said that Jesus would not associate with persons who suffer from a homosexual inclination.  So "Father John Q" is being dishonest here.  But it is blasphemous to suggest that Jesus may have been a homosexual.  One would think that a Catholic priest (if this individual is indeed a Catholic priest) would understand that.

Let's let Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J., explain: "Our Lord Jesus Christ is both God and man.  The union of his human nature and his divine nature is effected in the Person of the Word, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  Because of the Hypostatic Union, Christ's human nature is said to be substantially holy.  The reason for this is that the Word of God, who is uncreated holiness itself, imparts a special holiness to his own created human nature.  Since the relationship between Jesus' human nature and the Word of God is in the substantial order by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, then it is legitimate to say that his humanity is endowed with substantial sanctity or holiness.  For, it is impossible to have a more intimate union between a creature and God than the Hypostatic Union in Jesus Christ.  A suggestion of Jesus' substantial holiness is given in Luke 1:35, 'And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God.'..

In addition to the special 'grace of union,' as the above is called, Christ's soul is also holy by reason of the fullness of sanctifying grace with which it is endowed.  By 'sanctifying grace' here is meant the created habitual grace that inheres in the soul of the justified.  Jesus possesses the fullness of that grace.  Thus Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical letter on the Mystical Body in 1943: 'In Him (Christ) dwells the Holy Spirit with such a fullness of grace that greater cannot be conceived.'  Basing their opinion on the Gospel of St. John, all theologians ascribe sanctifying grace in its fullness to the human soul of Christ: 'And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us...full of grace and truth....And of his fullness we have all received, grace for grace' (John 1: 14, 16).  In Acts 10: 38 we read that 'God annointed him with the Holy Spirit'; in St. Luke we find that Jesus was 'filled with the Holy Spirit' (4: 1); he also quoted Isaiah and said, 'The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has annointed me.' (4: 18).

St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica III, q. 7, art. I), bases the sanctification of Jesus' humanity through sanctifying grace on three facts: 1) on the Hypostatic Union which demands the fullness of grace in Christ's soul according to the principle, 'The nearer an effect is to its cause, the more it partakes of its influence';  2) on the nobility of Christ's soul which enjoys the immediate  vision of God;  3)  on the relationship of Christ to all men since he is the Head and source of their grace." (Fundamentals of Catholicism, Volume II, pp. 260-261).

The Council of Constantinople II condemned those who defended the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia who asserted that Christ "was troubled by the sufferings of the soul and the longings of the flesh" and declared such people anathema (excommunicated).  To suggest that Jesus may have had a homosexual inclination is blasphemy because Jesus is perfect in both His natures - divine and human, He is the Head and source of all grace.  The Magisterium of the Church teaches authoritatively that, "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder." (Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, No. 3).

Deacon Nick Donnelly has noted in one of his Blog posts over at Protect the Pope that Mr. Weldon is an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist.  Now an individual purporting to be a Catholic priest is standing with him in blaspheming against the Lord Jesus.

The Bishops need to address this most serious matter immediately.

Pope Benedict XVI: "...the first step towards salvation.."

A few days ago, before giving the traditional Christmas blessing to the City of Rome and the world ("urbi et orbi"), Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the Child of Bethlehem as Savior.  His Holiness said (in part): "He was sent by God the Father to save us above all from the evil deeply rooted in man and in history: the evil of separation from God, the prideful presumption of being self-sufficient, of trying to compete with God and to take his place, to decide what is good and evil, to be the master of life and death.."


The Holy Father said that human beings cannot save themselves from this sin, "unless we rely on God's help, unless we cry out to him: 'Veni ad salvandum nos! -- Come to save us!'"

He affirmed, though, that "the very fact that we cry to heaven in this way already sets us aright; it makes us true to ourselves: We are in fact those who cried out to God and were saved."

The Bishop of Rome spoke of God as the physician, while we are the infirm. And to realize this, he said, "is the first step towards salvation, towards emerging from the maze in which we have been locked by our pride. To lift our eyes to heaven, to stretch out our hands and call for help is our means of escape, provided that there is Someone who hears us and can come to our assistance."

"Jesus Christ is the proof that God has heard our cry," the Pope declared. "And not only this! God's love for us is so strong that he cannot remain aloof; he comes out of himself to enter into our midst and to share fully in our human condition. The answer to our cry which God gave in Jesus infinitely transcends our expectations, achieving a solidarity which cannot be human alone, but divine. Only the God who is love, and the love which is God, could choose to save us in this way, which is certainly the lengthiest way, yet the way which respects the truth about him and about us: the way of reconciliation, dialogue and cooperation." (See here).

There is a famous hymn written by Martin Luther which begins, "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.." For all too many people today (including sadly, many Catholics) the conscience has become a "mighty fortress" built so as to shelter one from the exacting demands of truth. In the words of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "In the Psalms we meet from time to time the prayer that God should free man from his hidden sins. The Psalmist sees as his greatest danger the fact that he no longer recognizes them as sins and thus falls into them in apparently good conscience. Not being able to have a guilty conscience is a sickness...And thus one cannot aprove the maxim that everyone may always do what his conscience allows him to do: In that case the person without a conscience would be permitted to do anything. In truth it is his fault that his conscience is so broken that he no longer sees what he as a man should see. In other words, included in the concept of conscience is an obligation, namely, the obligation to care for it, to form it and educate it. Conscience has a right to respect and obedience in the measure in which the person himself respects it and gives it the care which its dignity deserves. The right of conscience is the obligation of the formation of conscience. Just as we try to develop our use of language and we try to rule our use of rules, so must we also seek the true measure of conscience so that finally the inner word of conscience can arrive at its validity.


For us this means that the Church's magisterium bears the responsibility for correct formation. It makes an appeal, one can say, to the inner vibrations its word causes in the process of the maturing of conscience. It is thus an oversimplification to put a statement of the magisterium in opposition to conscience. In such a case I must ask myself much more. What is it in me that contradicts this word of the magisterium? Is it perhaps only my comfort? My obstinacy? Or is it an estrangement through some way of life that allows me something which the magisterium forbids and that appears to me to be better motivated or more suitable simply because society considers it reasonable? It is only in the context of this kind of struggle that the conscience can be trained, and the magisterium has the right to expect that the conscience will be open to it in a manner befitting the seriousness of the matter. If I believe that the Church has its origins in the Lord, then the teaching office in the Church has a right to expect that it, as it authentically develops, will be accepted as a priority factor in the formation of conscience." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Keynote Address of the Fourth Bishops' Workshop of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, on "Moral Theology Today: Certitudes and Doubts," February 1984).

In the same address, Cardinal Ratzinger explains that, "Conscience is understood by many as a sort of deification of subjectivity, a rock of bronze on which even the magisterium is shattered....Conscience appears finally as subjectivity raised to the ultimate standard."

A broken conscience, an ill-formed conscience, becomes a mighty fortress which shuts the truth out. Have we built an interior castle, as did St. Teresa of Avila, which remains open to the demands of truth and the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Or has our conscience become a mighty fortress built to prevent our encounter with truth?

Related reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 1783-1785.

Terence Weldon: Homosexual activist

Terence Weldon, a homosexual activist who authors the "queering the church" Blog, writes, "The Gospel of John is of particular interest to queer people of faith for its repeated references to the “beloved disciple”, or to “the disciple that Jesus loved”. These references make clear that whoever he was, this disciple had a relationship with Jesus of particular intimacy. There’s the well-known scene from the Last Supper where he rests his head on Jesus’ breast (or lap), and at the crucifixion, he is the only man standing among the women at the foot of the cross. He is the one to whom Christ entrusts the care of his mother – rather as a surviving spouse in marriage would assume some responsibility for the care of a mother-in-law. The existence of this special relationship provides much of the argument for the proposition that Jesus’ sexual orientation may have been what we call “gay”.  See here.

Like most homosexual activists who seek to justify the sinfulness of homosexuality and even to "baptize" the disordered lifestyle, Mr. Weldon has a perverse tendency to twist facts and to engage in outright falsehood.  He refers to the "disciple whom he loved" (John 13:23) in a blasphemous attempt to convince others that Our Lord Jesus had a homosexual orientation.  What Mr. Weldon does not mention, being the ardent propagandist that he is, is that the Greek word agapan used in this passage implies the idea of disinterested, pure and dispassionate love.  In other words, the love mentioned here has absolutely nothing to do with a homosexual relationship.

In his Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) Pope Benedict XVI explains that: "of the three Greek words for love, eros, philia (the love of friendship) and agape, New Testament writers prefer the last, which occurs rather infrequently in Greek usage. As for the term philia, the love of friendship, it is used with added depth of meaning in Saint John's Gospel in order to express the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. The tendency to avoid the word eros, together with the new vision of love expressed through the word agape, clearly point to something new and distinct about the Christian understanding of love.
(Deus Caritas Est, No. 3).

Agape, as our Holy Father explains, refers to a "love grounded in and shaped by faith" as opposed to eros, a term which indicates "worldly" love which is possessive or covetous. (Deus Caritas Est, No. 7).

Terence Weldon has engaged in blasphemy against the Lord Jesus.  Blasphemy, as Father John Hardon, S.J., explains, "..is every form of speaking against God in a scornful or abusive way.  Blasphemy need not be expressed in speech.  It can be purely internal in thought or desire.  And it can become externally manifest in actions that are blasphemous twice over: once because of the internal contempt for God which inspires the action, and once again because the blasphemer goes so far as to profess his opposition to God so that others are scandalized by the blasphemy." (Pocket Catholic Catechism, pp. 237-238).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that: "Blasphemy is directly opposed to the second commandment. It consists in uttering against God - inwardly or outwardly - words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one's speech; in misusing God's name. St. James condemns those "who blaspheme that honorable name [of Jesus] by which you are called." The prohibition of blasphemy extends to language against Christ's Church, the saints, and sacred things. It is also blasphemous to make use of God's name to cover up criminal practices, to reduce peoples to servitude, to torture persons or put them to death. The misuse of God's name to commit a crime can provoke others to repudiate religion.


Blasphemy is contrary to the respect due God and his holy name. It is in itself a grave sin." (2148).

Blasphemy is in itself a grave sin.  In other words, a mortal sin.  And if unconfessed, a mortal sin will lead a soul to Hell.

Mr. Weldon has sunk to a new low in his desire to propagandize for the "queer gospel."  Pray for him.  That he repents and returns to the Lord Jesus and the Church He founded - the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.

Related reading: Deacon Nick Donnelly on Terence Weldon.

"The great trial has arrived for all humanity..."

"Before the war breaks out again, food will be scarce and expensive. There will be little work for the workers, and fathers will hear their children crying for food. There will be earthquakes and signs in the sun. Toward the end, darkness will cover the earth.

When everyone believes that peace is assured, when everyone least expects it, the great happening will begin. Revolution will break out in Italy almost at the same time as in France. For some time the Church will be without a Pope." - The Ecstatic of Tours, 19th century.

Our Lady told Fr. Stephano Gobbi on November 15, 1990, at Malvern Pennsylvania: "I announce to you that the hour of the great trial is on the point of arriving. The great trial has arrived for your country. How many times, as a concerned and sorrowing mother, have I endeavored to urge my children to follow the path of conversion and of return to the Lord. I have not been listened to. You have continued to walk along the way of rejection of God, and of His law of love. Sins of impurity have become ever more widespread, and immorality has spread like a sea which has submerged all things. Homosexuality, a sin of impurity which is against nature, has been justified; recourse to the means of preventing life have become commonplace, while abortions - these killings of innocent children, that cry for vengeance before the face of God - have spread and are performed in every part of your homeland.The moment of divine justice and of great mercy has now arrived.


You will know the hour of weakness and of poverty; the hour of suffering and defeat; the purifying hour of the great chastisement. The great trial has arrived for your Church. How great is your responsibility, O Pastors of the Holy Church of God! You continue along the path of division from the Pope and of the rejection of his Magisterium; indeed, in a hidden way, there is in preparation a true schism which could soon become open and proclaimed...And then, there will remain only a small faithful remnant, over which I will keep watch in the garden of my Immaculate Heart.

The great trial has arrived for all humanity. The chastisement, predicted by me at Fatima and contained in that part of the secret which has not yet been revealed, is about to take place. The great moment of divine justice and of mercy has come upon the world."

This prophecy is now being fulfilled. And no economic "bailout" will save the day. Only prayer and penance, mortification and a sacramental life. But these are not considered "fashionable" today. And so our sin-soaked society, which is morally, spiritually and intellectually bankrupt, looks for secular answers to what is essentially a spiritual problem.

Signs....

“Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and for your holy city: Then transgression will stop and sin will end, guilt will be expiated, Everlasting justice will be introduced, vision and prophecy ratified, and a holy of holies will be anointed.

Know and understand: From the utterance of the word that Jerusalem was to be rebuilt. Until there is an anointed ruler, there shall be seven weeks. In the course of sixty-two weeks it shall be rebuilt, With squares and trenches, in time of affliction.

After the sixty-two weeks an anointed one shall be cut down with no one to help him. And the people of a leader who will come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. His end shall come in a flood; until the end of the war, which is decreed, there will be desolation.

For one week he shall make a firm covenant with the many; Half the week he shall abolish sacrifice and offering; In their place shall be the desolating abomination until the ruin that is decreed is poured out upon the desolator."  (Daniel 9: 24-27).

Related reading: Ezekiel 47.

Related reading here.

"..the lay faithful's role in the well-being of the Church is essential..."

In his Address to the Bishops of the Episcopal Conferences of the Pacific and of New Zealand on their Ad Limina visit, Pope Benedict XVI reminded the Bishops that, "..the lay faithful’s role in the well-being of the Church is essential since the Lord does not expect pastors 'to undertake by themselves the entire saving mission of the Church' (Lumen Gentium, 30). I understand from your reports that your task of spreading the Gospel often depends on the assistance of lay missionaries and catechists. Continue to ensure that a sound and ongoing formation be afforded them, especially within the context of their associations. In so doing, you will equip them for every good work in the building up of the body of Christ (cf. 2 Tim 3:17; Eph 4:12). Their zeal for the faith under your continued leadership and support will surely bear much fruit in the vineyard of the Lord."  See here.

Vatican II, in its Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church (Ad Gentes), has this to say: "The Church has not been really founded and is not yet fully alive, nor is it a perfect sign of Christ among men, unless there is a laity worthy of the name working along with the hierarchy. For the Gospel cannot be deeply grounded in the abilities, life and work of any people without the active presence of laymen. Therefore, even at the very founding of a chrch, great attention is to be paid to establishing a mature, Christian laity. For the lay faithful fully belong at one and the same time both to the People of God and to civil society...They also belong to Christ, because they were regenerated in the Church by faith and by Baptism, so that they are Christ's in newness of life and work (cf. 1 Cor 15: 23), in order that in Christ, all things may be made subject to God, and finally God will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15: 28)." (Ad Gentes, No. 21).


One of the reasons for the rapid decay which is corroding the Catholic spirit in the United States and elsewhere is the spread of a so-called liberalism (neo-modernism) which fosters a secularist attitude in Christians, one that creates an animus against the Faith and works against evangelization.  The lay faithful who remain committed to the Church's teaching and who take seriously their vocation to convert those outside the Church are most often not encouraged.  Often they are discouraged (in the name of an unhealthy pluralism) from engaging in evangelization.

Pope Paul VI, in an allocution given on July 2nd, 1975, warned against this attitude:

"In practice many peoplewho call themselves Christians think so [that the field of faith can be separated from that of activity], believing that the adherence to religion does not involve other duties than some specific observances, such as Sunday Mass and the fulfilling of the paschal precept.  We must note, in fact, a certain allergy on the part of modern Christians to action qualified by their own religious sentiments, owing to a misrepresentation of so-called pluralism, as if every doctrinal opinion were admissible, and therefore it was not worthwhile to propose as necessary one's own faith to others; or because of an exclusive authority attributed to subjective conscience, to the detriment of the objective principle that must inform conscience itself."

Pope Leo XIII rejected this perverse attitude of doctrinal detente writing:

"We cannot consider altogether blameless the silence which purposely leads to the omission or neglect of some principles of Christian doctrine, for all the principles come from the Author and Master, 'the Only Begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father.' ...Concerning this point Vatican Council - says: 'All things are to be believed with Divine and Catholic Faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal Magisterium, proposes for belief as having been Divinely revealed.'  Let it be far from anyone's mind to lessen or to suppress for any reason, any doctrine that has been handed down.  Such a policy would tend rather to separate Catholics from the Church than to bring in those who differ.  There is nothing closer to our heart than to have those who are separated from the fold of Christ return to it, but in no other way than the way pointed out by Christ." (Apostolic Letter Testem Benevolentiae).

At my parish, I have been shunned for upholding the Church's teaching regarding abortion and homosexuality.  Because I objected to the promotion of the "Catholic" Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) in the parish bulletin, I am now persona non grata.  While our Holy Father insists that, "the lay faithful’s role in the well-being of the Church is essential," there are priests who actively suppress and shun members of the lay faithful who take their vocation seriously.

Cardinal Francis George: LGBT Movement could morph into Ku Klux Klan

CathNewsUSA is reporting that "Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago, this week told a Chicago news station that he agreed with a local Roman Catholic church’s objections to the city’s recently-adjusted Gay Pride Parade route passing by its doors and warned that the parade could 'morph into the Ku Klux Klan.'


George made the comment Sunday on Fox Chicago when asked about Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s complaints that the parade passing by its Belmont Avenue location would force the church to cancel its morning mass. The church recently launched a petition urging the city to force parade organizers to adjust their plans.

'I go with the pastor,' George told Fox. 'He’s telling us that he won’t be able to have services on Sunday if that’s the case. You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism.'"  (See here).

Readers of this Blog know that I have already drawn comparisons between the LGBT Movement and the Ku Klux Klan.  In a post from April of 2010, I wrote: "Historian John Higham once described anti-Catholicism as 'the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.' Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. characterized prejudice against Catholics as 'the deepest bias in the history of the American people.' And conservative commentator Peter Viereck has said that 'Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals.'


But nowhere is this 'paranoiac agitation' and hate-filled prejudice against Catholics more deeply ingrained than in today's Homosexual Hate Movement. There are parallels between this hate movement and the Ku Klux Klan at the early part of the twentieth-century. When the Klan enjoyed a resurgence in the 1920s, anti-Catholic rhetoric intensified to such a degree that it led to violence against Catholics and the burning down of a Catholic Church. Just two weeks after the Church of the Little Flower was erected in 1925, the Klan burned a cross in front of the church. Later the church would burn down in a fire.

Today, hate-filled rhetoric is being levelled against the Catholic Church by rabidly anti-Catholic extremists and this extreme rhetoric has led to open violence against Catholics and Catholic churches (not to mention Protestant and Mormon churches)....One radical anti-Catholic activist has compared the Holy Father to a vampire who is nothing but a bigot (See here). One of his associates (a professor of Sociology) has written that, 'The Pope and the Vatican, modern day Pharisees, and their minions, have caused untold suffering to countless numbers of people, and no decent person, no Christian, no LGBT person, has any business giving credibility to that institution by his/her presence and money.' (See here). Of course, this bright light offers no evidence to support his wild and irresponsible claims against the Church. But then how can we expect such an individual to be concerned with facts in the face of such blanket condemnations of a Church comprised of more than 1 billion people? The classic definition of prejudice: 'Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion.'

The LGBT Movement is very much like the Klan.  It has shown that it will resort to intimidation and violence to get its way.

Is the LGBT Movement interested in dialogue?  You discern.

Presidential frontrunner Ron Paul warns that martial law is being established in America

As this article explains, "Leading GOP candidate Ron Paul has warned in recent interviews that the amendments passed in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) are not only dangerous, but authorize the establishment of total martial law inside the United States. Not only does the bill, in sections 1031 and 1032, declare the unconstitutional right to detain Americans indefinitely without trial, but it authorizes an Internet offensive and online Pentagon takeover under the pretext of cybersecurity and stopping online piracy."

People are being gradually desensitized and lulled into a false sense of security.  Most simply aren't aware of the dangers which are advancing steadily. William Parker, in an article entitled "Your fourth amendment rights under attack by Obama, DOJ," writes: "There is no talk of 'the slippery slope' anymore, which so many people used as an argument against many policies enacted by the Bush administration. Yet, now more than ever, it seems the slippery slope has given way to the sheer drop from the cliffs of sanity. There are intentional actions already in progress to simply take from us the rights we have apparently taken for granted. The Dept. of Justice apparently believes that U.S. citizens do not enjoy a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with respect to cell phone use, and have been attempting to acquire the ability to simply demand user information from the cell phone companies without going through standard procedures to obtain a warrant for specific information on specific individuals for use in specific prosecutions. They are assaulting the fourth amendment in yet another case, asserting that "email over 181 days old should not be protected from warrantless search and seizure."

Where is the outrage? These are not things that are occurring as a consequence of, or as a by-product of, some other action being taken for some otherwise lofty purpose. The government means to take these freedoms, piece by piece, with the hopes that nobody will care until it's too late." Full article here.


In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II warned us that, "....totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another. If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. People are then respected only to the extent that they can be exploited for selfish ends. Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.." (No. 44).

In England, censorship is being advanced.  And the driving force behind this effort is an organization known for its pro-homosexual ideology. Under Erich Scholz, Minister of the Interior for the Third Reich, the Reich Broadcasting Corporation became nothing but a propaganda tool where dissenting ideas which were deemed dangerous or "degrading" were simply excluded. In the words of Erich Scholz, "The German radio serves the German people. That which degrades the German people is excluded from German radio."  How much longer before the Bible is deemed "hate literature" because it says that homosexual acts are gravely sinful?  How much longer before Christian websites and Blogs are silenced forever because they promote and defend God's Revelation?  How much longer before the Holy Father's words are deemed "degrading"?  Already, a German website has called our beloved Holy Father "anti-human" and "anti-democratic."

Ron Paul is gravely concerned.  As are many other scholars.  Shouldn't we all be?

U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree: Homage to Obama but not Jesus

CNS News reports that "The 63-foot Sierra White Fir lighted at the U.S. Capitol Grounds on Dec. 6 as the official 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree includes a prominently displayed ornament paying homage to President Barack Obama, but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree's base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ. (See here).

I am reminded of what Pope Benedict XVI had to say at the General Audience of December 20, 2006: "The Advent liturgy also exhorts us to be sober and watchful in order not to let ourselves be burdened by sin and excessively worldly concerns. Indeed, it is by watching and praying that we will be able to recognize and accept the splendour of Christ's birth. St. Maximus of Turin, a Bishop of the fourth and fifth centuries, said in one of his homilies: "The time warns us that the Birth of Christ the Lord is at hand. The world with its own apprehensions speaks of something imminent that will renew it, and desires with impatient expectation that the splendour of a brighter sun may illumine its darkness.... This expectation of creation also persuades us to wait for Christ, the new Sun, to rise" (cf. Hom. 61a, 1-3). Creation itself, therefore, leads us to discover and recognize the One who must come.


But the question is: is the humanity of our time still waiting for a Saviour? One has the feeling that many consider God as foreign to their own interests. Apparently, they do not need him. They live as though he did not exist and, worse still, as though he were an "obstacle" to remove in order to fulfil themselves.."

Is this our attitude?  Do we consider Jesus as an obstacle to our own interests?  Do we pay lip service to Jesus while living as if we don't need Him?  Father James Sullivan writes, "How I should love Your Name, my Jesus!  And what personal love and devotion I should feel for You!  Yet I am cold.  Your presence in the Eucharist doesn't move me; Your reflection in others I overlook.  I pass so much of the day without any recollection of Your presence, Your nearness or Your goodness all around me.  And I act on natural likes and dislikes when every affection of my heart should be loyally and lovingly dedicated to the King Who is my Saviour." (My Meditation on the Gospel, p. 28).

This Advent Season, are we waiting for Christ, the new Sun, to rise in our hearts?  Or are we constrained by ego and selfish desires?

"..as long as their parents support the Catholic mission of the school and do not offer a serious counter-witness to that mission in their actions."

In an editorial for Catholic Insight entitled "Those who attack the Catholic Faith cannot be part of Catholic schools," Fr. Alphonse de Valk writes, "I am writing this editorial in the third week of Advent, just after Gaudete Sunday. Gaudate is Latin for rejoice. Yes, we rejoice in the coming (advent) or Our Lord Jesus Christ and nothing can, nor should, take away the joy in the Son of God becoming “man” and thereby preparing the way for mankind’s delivery from sin and the devil. Jesus did break the bond of sin created by Adam and Eve’s fall for disobeying God. He did re-open the road to Eternal Life, which, however, we will not, and cannot, enter unless we obey his invitation to accept His commandments. ”My yoke is easy, my burden is light.” If only we believe it.

The magazine enters its 20th year of publication with this issue. From the beginning, the defence of the dignity of each human life has been our chief concern, first the assault on life itself—abortion—and its forerunner contraception—then the associated evils which were to follow—sterilization, homosexual behaviour, euthanasia (the killing of the elderly and the sick), assisted suicide, pornography.

In our first year, 1993, we exposed the false teaching of the priest/professor André Guindon at St. Paul’s Theological University in Ottawa. From then on, after contraception-abortion, Catholic Insight took the homosexual agenda as the most virulent threat to society. Why? Because unlike abortion which does not leave any survivors, only victims, those practising same-sex relations grow in number and ruthlessness as their agenda is strengthened by newly coined “rights” in law and public acceptance. Supported by the enormous popularity of modern pornography, assisted by prostitution and the elimination of old restrictions on human behaviour mostly through judicial fiats, their own insatiable immorality demands public approval for more and more deviant behaviour.

During the last ten years, Catholic Insight has traced the expansion of same-sex relationships throughout the Western hemisphere with special attention to the activity of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the enshrinement of homosexual behaviour as a human right in Canada in 2005. Since then, we have tracked its expansion in Europe and the U.S., to the newest announcement from American President Barach Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, on December 5, 2011, to link American foreign aid to the promotion of homosexuality-based “rights” abroad. Just as every American embassy earlier had become an outpost for the promotion of abortion, so they will now become sources for bribing and bullying the whole world but especially African, Asian and South American countries dependant on aid. The great Imperialist of yore has been replaced by the Ugly American of today, interfering in the internal affairs of countries everywhere and doling out hundreds of million of dollars to corrupt their people. Kenya, the Philippines, and South America have been targeted already. Nigeria is on the list.

The mission of Catholic schools has not changed over time. The main purpose of religion, as Archbishop Charles Chaput, then of Denver, now of Philadelphia, wrote two years ago.

“[T]o form students in Catholic faith, Catholic morality and Catholic social values. … Many of our schools also accept students of other faiths and no faith, and from single parent and divorced parent families. These students are always welcome as long as their parents support the Catholic mission of the school and do not offer a serious counter-witness to that mission in their actions …

“That’s the background. Now to the human side of a painful situation. The Church never looks for reasons to turn anyone away from a Catholic education. But the Church cannot change her moral beliefs without undermining her mission and failing to serve the many families who believe in that mission …

“The Church does not claim that people with a homosexual orientation are bad, or that their children are less loved by God … But what the Church does teach is that sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong; that marriage is a sacramental covenant; and that marriage can occur only between a man and a woman. These beliefs are central to a Catholic understanding of human nature, family and happiness, and the organization of society. The Church cannot change these teachings because … they are the teaching of Jesus Christ…” (See CI July/August 2010, p. 21)

These words are clear and concise. They apply to Canada and especially to Ontario Catholic schools. Bishops in Quebec and Newfoundland allowed state officials to pull the wool over their eyes. This must not happen in Ontario. (See article “Same-sex relations rampant in Toronto Catholic schools” in this issue, p.28.) If OECTA accepts the same-sex relationship motion in March 2012, it should have the title “Catholic” removed and its Charter as a union for Catholic teachers revoked."  See here.


Reflect very carefully on these words: "Many of our schools also accept students of other faiths and no faith, and from single parent and divorced parent families. These students are always welcome as long as their parents support the Catholic mission of the school and do not offer a serious counter-witness to that mission in their actions..."


The Archdiocese of Boston has said that it will tolerate parents who offer a serious counter-witness to the Catholic mission of the school in their actions.  Cardinal O'Malley believes that Catholic schools can partner with homosexual parents.  See here.

Which view is Catholic and which view represents compromise with the Culture of Death?

Related reading here.

An Advent Reflection: There is still no room at the inn...

There was no room in the inn


In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered...All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilea to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of david. he went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child...And she gave birth to her forst-born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1-7)


Archbishop Fulton John Sheen writes, "Mary is now with child, awaiting birth, and Joseph is full of expectancy as he enters the city of his own family. He searched for a place for the birth of Him to Whom heaven and earth belonged. Could it be that the Creator would not find room in His own creation?

Certainly, thought Joseph, there would be room in the village inn. There was room for the rich; there was room for those who were clothed in soft garments...But when finally the scrolls of history are completed down to the last word of time, the saddest lines of all will be: "There was no room in the inn". No room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. The inn was the gathering place of public opinion, the focal point of the world's moods, the rendezvous of the worldy, the rallying place of the popular and the successful. But there's no room for outcasts, the ignored, and the forgotten. The world might have expected the Son of God to be born in an inn; a stable would certainly be the last place in the world where one would look for Him. The lesson is: divinity is always where you least expect to find it. So the Son of God-Made-Man is invited to enter into His own world through a back door." (Bishop Sheen Catechism)

There was no room for the Incarnate Word - no room for Him Who is Truth.  In many parishes today, there is no room for truth.  And this shouldn't surprise us.  Our Lord assured us that, "They will harry you as they harried me.  They will respect your words as much as they respected mine.  All this they will do to you because of my name, for they know nothing of him who sent me." (John 15: 20-21).

Again, it was Archbishop Fulton John Sheen who once said, "The acceptance of the fullness of Truth will have the unfortunate quality of making you hated by the world. Forget for a moment the history of Christianity, and the fact that Christ existed. Suppose there appeared in this world today a man who claimed to be Divine Truth; and who did not say, 'I will teach you Truth,' but 'I am the Truth.' Suppose he gave evidence by his works of the truth of his statement. Knowing ourselves as we do, with our tendency to relativism, to indifference, and to the fusing of right and wrong, how do you suppose we would react to that Divine Truth? With hatred, with obloquy, with defiance; with charges of intolerance, narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and crucifixion. That is what happened to Christ. That is what our Lord said would happen to those who accept His Truth."



Have you ever noticed how worldly people achieve great fame and success and are entirely welcomed by others but that those who give themselves entirely to God meet with only resistance and persecution? St. Alphonsus de Liguori said that, "As soon as souls give themselves completely to God, God Himself causes or permits others to despise and persecute them." And Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, reminded us that: "A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call. A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens -- as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys a sleeper -- that is the preaching of Christ, calling, "wake up! Be converted!" this is the church's authentic preaching. Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil what is miscalled prestige, must disturb, must be persecuted. It cannot get along with the powers of darkness and sin."

As Catholics faithful to the Lord Jesus, Who teaches us through the Magisterium of His Church, we can expect to be shunned, harried, slandered and persecuted in so many different ways by those who remain in the Church but only in a bodily manner - because they have abandoned charity:

"They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart." (Lumen Gentium, No. 14).

And it is impossible for a person to claim that they are persevering in charity when they refuse to remain fully incorporated in the society of the Church by remaining obedient to her hierarchical structure.  Our Lord Jesus told His Apostles, "He who hears you hears Me."  And obviously, those who refuse to hear the Church are refusing to hear the Lord Jesus.  Such people must constantly strain to convince themselves that they are in communion with the Church.  But they remain within the Church only in a bodily manner. 

The smoke of Satan has entered into Christ's Church.  Some priests and deacons are serving not the Lord Jesus but the Father of Lies.  Such have given themselves up to various lusts.  Including the lust for power - especially for power over others. Our Lady has warned of this already.  The Immaculate One told Father Gobbi: "I also foretold to you the great crisis which would take place in the Church, because of the great apostasy which has entered into her, caused by an ever wider diffusion of errors, by her interior division, by opposition to the Pope and by the rejection of his Magisterium.  This most beloved Daughter of mine must live the hours of her agony and of her sorrowful passion.  She will be abandoned by many of her children.  The impetuous wind of persecution will blow against her, and much blood will be shed, even by my beloved sons." (October 13, 1994, Anniversary of the Last Apparition at Fatima).

Our troubled world, blinded and wounded by sin, still cannot find room for Truth.  Which is why those who follow the Lord Jesus (in more than a bodily manner but with true obedience), can expect to be persecuted.  All the more so as the Man of Sin makes his approach.

President Obama, the fetus is not an inert blob but an "active and dynamic" child capable of learning and feeling. Why then do you support killing such children?

In an article for LifeSiteNews, Cathy Ruse writes, "In a recent column on CNN online, science writer Annie Murphy Paul discusses her astonishment at finding myriad studies about what babies can learn in the womb.


Once considered a mundane field for the researcher, “[n]ow the nine months of gestation are the focus of intense interest and excitement,” she writes, “pregnancy is not a nine-month wait for the big event of birth, but a crucial period unto itself.”

Researchers are learning that much of what a mother experiences in her daily life is communicated to developing child, from the air she breathes and the food and drink she consumes even to the emotions she feels. Paul likens it to “biological postcards from the world outside.”

“The fetus, we now know, is not an inert blob, but an active and dynamic creature, responding and adapting as it readies itself for life in the particular world it will soon enter.” Amen to that.

The findings won’t shock the pro-lifer, but the fact that they’re gaining attention in the scientific community and are being reported in places like CNN online should cheer the pro-life soul. “The recognition that learning actually begins before birth leads us to a striking new conception of the fetus, the pregnant woman and the relationship between them.”

Some of Paul’s conclusions, though, seem to be a stretch. “By attending to such messages,” she writes, “the fetus learns the answers to questions critical to its survival: Will it be born into a world of abundance, or scarcity? Will it be safe and protected, or will it face constant dangers and threats? Will it live a long, fruitful life, or a short, harried one?” A bit deterministic, if you ask me, but I welcome her acknowledgment of the growing child’s sentience." (See here).

Back in 2008, then candidate Barack Obama, speaking at a Chicago Church where he addressed the problem of absent black fathers, said that, "We need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception."  See here.  In an ad put out by the Family Research Council, FRC President Tony Perkins responded to Obama by asking, "If, as you say, fatherhood begins at conception, when does life begin?"


An excellent point. If fatherhood begins at conception, so does human life. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot suggest that fatherhood begins at conception but human life does not. As Dr. & Mrs. J.C. Willke explain in their book "Why can't we love them both: questions and answers about abortion," "Biologic human life is defined by examining the scientific facts of human development. This is a field where there is no controversy, no disagreement. There is only one set of facts, only one embryology book is studied in medical school. The more scientific knowledge of fetal development that has been learned, the more science has confirmed that the beginning of any one human individual's life, biologically speaking, begins at the completion of the union of his father's sperm and his mother's ovum, a process called "conception," "fertilization," or "fecundation." This is so because this being, from fertilization, is alive, human, sexed, complete and growing."



In his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II said that: "Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, "from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and ... modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. It has demonstrated that from the first instant there is established the programme of what this living being will be: a person, this individual person with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization the adventure of a human life begins, and each of its capacities requires time-a rather lengthy time-to find its place and to be in a position to act". Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by empirical data, the results themselves of scientific research on the human embryo provide "a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?" (No. 60).


During his Father's Day speech, candidate Obama slipped. Even though his record on abortion speaks for itself (he supports even partial-birth abortion, which amounts to infanticide), by telling his audience that fathers need to recognize their responsibility doesn't end at conception, he was admitting that at conception "a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother" but instead "the life of a new human being with his own growth" which the father is responsible for.

And, if a father's responsibility is just beginning at conception, what of the responsibility of the State to guarantee this new human being his or her rights: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?" (Declaration of Independence).

Scientific research has proven what pro-lifers have known all along: that the unborn child is not an inert blob of tissue "but an active and dynamic creature" capable of learning and feeling.  And Barack Obama believes that this human life, precious in God's sight, doesn't deserve to live.

The photo above shows an unborn child at 5 months.  President Obama supports abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. 

We are in a war....

In hoc signo vinces

John-Henry Westen writes, "Just last month one of the highest-ranking Cardinals in the Vatican alerted Christians that the moral struggle we are facing in the world today 'is a war.' It is 'critical at this time that Christians stand up for the natural moral law,' especially in defense of life and the family, said Cardinal Raymond Burke. We are, he said, 'well on the way' to the persecution of Christians in America.


'If Christians do not stand strong, give a strong witness and insist on what is right and good for us both as and individuals and society,' the former Archbishop of St. Louis warned, 'this secularization will in fact predominate and it will destroy us.'"

For years I have been warning that the United States is in twilight.  Pope John Paul II warned us years ago that this period of persecution was coming.  He said, "We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel and the anti-Gospel...It is a trial which the whole Church ...must take up." (Wall Street Journal, November 9, 1978 edition).  And it was Fulton John Sheen who said that: "We are living in the days of the Apocalypse - the last days of our era...The two great forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines for the catastrophic contest."

Even within the Church the smoke of Satan has entered and those who have succumbed to practical atheism turn on their fellow Catholics with hatred and enmity.  Our Lady told Father Gobbi that, "Practical atheism spreads by false ideologies, by the sects, by the errors which are spreading more and more, even within the Church...Practical atheism has spread everywhere the wound of unbridled egoism, of violence, of hatred and of impurity.  Impurity is proposed as a value and a good, and it is propagated throughout all the mass media.  Sins of impurity are presented as a way of exercising one's personal freedom, and so impure sins against nature [e.g., homosexuality], which cry for vengeance in the sight of God, become justified and exalted.  The world has now been reduced to an immense desert, completely covered with filth." (September 2, 1996).

The enmity between the Children of Mary and the Children of Belial is intensifying as St. Louis de Montfort prophesied it would:

 "Mary must become as terrible as an army in battle array to the devil and his followers, especially in these latter times. For Satan, knowing that he has little time - even less now than ever - to destroy souls, intensifies his efforts and his onslaughts every day. He will not hesitate to stir up savage persecutions and set treacherous snares for Mary's faithful servants and children whom he finds more difficult to overcome than others.


It is chiefly in reference to these last wicked persecutions of the devil, daily increasing until the advent of the reign of anti- Christ, that we should understand that first and well-known prophecy and curse of God uttered against the serpent in the garden of paradise. It is opportune to explain it here for the glory of the Blessed Virgin, the salvation of her children and the confusion of the devil. 'I will place enmities between you and the woman, between your race and her race; she will crush your head and you will lie in wait for her heel' (Gen. 3:15).

God has established only one enmity - but it is an irreconcilable one - which will last and even go on increasing to the end of time. That enmity is between Mary, his worthy Mother, and the devil, between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and followers of Lucifer.

Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpent and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin's, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments.

What Lucifer lost by pride Mary won by humility. What Eve ruined and lost by disobedience Mary saved by obedience. By obeying the serpent, Eve ruined her children as well as herself and delivered them up to him. Mary by her perfect fidelity to God saved her children with herself and consecrated them to his divine majesty.

God has established not just one enmity but 'enmities', and not only between Mary and Satan but between her race and his race. That is, God has put enmities, antipathies and hatreds between the true children and servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love and no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world, - for they are all one and the same - have always persecuted and will persecute more than ever in the future those who belong to the Blessed Virgin, just as Cain of old persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob. These are the types of the wicked and of the just. But the humble Mary will always triumph over Satan, the proud one, and so great will be her victory that she will crush his head, the very seat of his pride. She will unmask his serpent's cunning and expose his wicked plots. She will scatter to the winds his devilish plans and to the end of time will keep her faithful servants safe from his cruel claws.


But Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him. In the eyes of the world they will be little and poor and, like the heel, lowly in the eyes of all, down-trodden and crushed as is the heel by the other parts of the body. But in compensation for this they will be rich in God's graces, which will be abundantly bestowed on them by Mary. They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ." (True Devotion to Mary, 50-54).

We are now living these times.  At my last parish, the homilies never mentioned sin or the need for repentance.  There were no homilies condemning abortion, homosexual acts, contraception, fornication etc.  Not a word.  But there was something which absolutely angered the clerics there; something which filled them with rage: my arriving early for each Holy Mass to pray the Holy Rosary.  For I was looked upon with scorn and even attacked while praying the Holy Rosary during Christmas Mass.

At my current parish, the Deacon - who at first was friendly - now cannot even look at me.  For the same reason I suspect.  And because I warned the priest of the parish (he is not the pastor but has been named administrator instead) that he was promoting CCHD in the parish bulletin (CCHD supports groups which advance abortion and homosexuality), it is obvious that I am now persona non grata.

Now is the time for battle.  We are servants of Jesus and Mary.  Let us not be afraid as we march under the banner of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  We will be hated and treated with scorn.  But this is because we are not friends with the world.  We refuse to compromise with the demon and so we are persecuted.

So be it!  Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat!

Rainbow Sash Movement: Is it dialogue they want or merely surrender to their agenda?

In my last post, I noted how retired Lutheran Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom has called on the Roman Catholic Bishops of Minnesota to jettison Catholic teaching in the name of "charity" and "dialogue" and to surrender to the radical homosexual agenda and its demands for same-sex "marriage." 

In his Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam Suam, Pope Paul VI told us that, "The Church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make." (No. 65). The Holy Father goes on to say that, "Dialogue, therefore, is a recognized method of the apostolate. It is a way of making spiritual contact. It should however have the following characteristics:

1) Clarity before all else; the dialogue demands that what is said should be intelligible. We can think of it as a kind of thought transfusion. It is an invitation to the exercise and development of the highest spiritual and mental powers a man possesses. This fact alone would suffice to make such dialogue rank among the greatest manifestations of human activity and culture. In order to satisfy this first requirement, all of us who feel the spur of the apostolate should examine closely the kind of speech we use. Is it easy to understand? Can it be grasped by ordinary people? Is it current idiom?

2) Our dialogue must be accompanied by that meekness which Christ bade us learn from Himself: "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart." It would indeed be a disgrace if our dialogue were marked by arrogance, the use of bared words or offensive bitterness. What gives it its authority is the fact that it affirms the truth, shares with others the gifts of charity, is itself an example of virtue, avoids peremptory language, makes no demands. It is peaceful, has no use for extreme methods, is patient under contradiction and inclines towards generosity.

3) Confidence is also necessary; confidence not only in the power of one's own words, but also in the good will of both parties to the dialogue. Hence dialogue promotes intimacy and friendship on both sides. It unites them in a mutual adherence to the Good, and thus excludes all self-seeking.

4) Finally, the prudence of a teacher who is most careful to make allowances for the psychological and moral circumstances of his hearer, particularly if he is a child, unprepared, suspicious or hostile. The person who speaks is always at pains to learn the sensitivities of his audience, and if reason demands it, he adapts himself and the manner of his presentation to the susceptibilities and the degree of intelligence of his hearers....In a dialogue conducted with this kind of foresight, truth is wedded to charity and understanding to love." (Nos. 81, 82).

As faithful Catholics, we must recognize and embrace these characteristics of authentic dialogue, even when our partners in dialogue refuse to accept these principles. For we will often encounter those who have succumbed to relativism or who do not possess a love of objective truth. For such people, the purpose of dialogue is not to attain truth but rather to achieve personal victory and to triumph at any cost.  For example, Joe Murray, Executive Director of the Rainbow Sash Movement in the United States, after hurling a litany of angry and calumnious accusations against Archbishop Timothy Dolan in particular and the Catholic Church in general, challenges the Archbishop to an open debate.  See here.

The Rainbow Sash Movement declares, "We recognize that our Executive Director’s call for such a public debate will most certainly be met with arrogance, and even dismissal. However, such a refusal will only focus the spotlight on a Catholic Archbishop who lacks the courage to stand up for what he claims to believe in and meet in a public setting for a debate on Gay Marriage. It is time to replace the feeding frenzy of homophobia with a mature exchange of ideas in the Church."


As Dr. Montague Brown explains in his wonderful book "The One-Minute Philosopher" (Sophia Institute Books): "An argument (emotional, not rational) is a disorderly confrontation based on an unwillingness to learn from one another. Desire for victory takes precedence over love of truth, with the result that agreement becomes impossible....in an argument, I simply want my position to be the right one and you to agree with me. I am, indeed, looking for agreement, but on my terms, not in terms of objective truth." (p. 33). An authentic dialogue (which such people are not really interested in) is, "..an orderly confrontation based on a mutual willingness to learn from one another. It involves the presentation of evidence by each party and then a good-faith attempt of the participants in the discussion to come to agreement...In a discussion [or dialogue], I do not primarily want to disagree: I want to know the truth.." (The One-Minute Philosopher, p. 32).

But herein lies the problem.  The radical homosexual activists of the "Rainbow Sash Movement" are not interested in objective truth or authentic dialogue.  They will not - they cannot - come to the table with good will.  And this because they care not for truth.  Only for "power" as they incorrectly perceive power.

The Rainbow Sash Movement is part of the broader Homosexual Hate Movement and has engaged in calumny against Pope Benedict XVI, accusing the Holy Father of having "a Nazi past."  At one point last year, this hate group announced its plans to violate federal law and to show contempt for the celebration of the Holy Mass across the United States on Pentecost Sunday by disrupting the Mass.  See here.

Retired Lutheran Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom tells Minnesota Catholic Bishops they are "making a significant mistake" on same-sex "marriage."

Retired Lutheran Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom has found it necessary to lecture the Catholic Bishops of Minnesota, assaulting them with his homosexual agitprop.  In an article which may be found here, the Lutheran propagandist for sodomy writes:

"To My Brothers – The Catholic Bishops of Minnesota:


In 1976 I was elected a Lutheran bishop in Minnesota – one of seven such Lutheran leaders in the state. Over the next years one of the highlights of my time in office was the annual noon-to-noon retreat with our eight Catholic counterparts in the state.

The bond that developed between us was deep and respectful. We shared our differences; we celebrated our likenesses. My friendship with Archbishop John Roach and Bishop Raymond Lucker, in particular, is a blessing I will treasure as long as I live.

May I share a word with all of you who now lead the Roman Catholic community of faith in Minnesota?

First, I would go to the wall to defend your right to work for the adoption of the so-called marriage protection amendment. Having said that, I must tell you that I believe you are making a significant mistake.
Over my 35 years as an active and retired bishop I have come to know hundreds of gay and lesbian persons. I have yet to meet even one who is opposed to the marriage of one man and one woman. After all, they are the daughters and sons of such unions.

What they cannot understand is why church leaders would oppose their fundamental desire and right to be in partnership with someone they love and respect who happens to be of the same gender and sexual orientation. They don't understand why they should not enjoy all the rights and privileges their straight counterparts take for granted.

More than a half century ago Father Francis Gilligan spoke out for equality for African American citizens of Minnesota. Though many argued on the basis of the Bible that these neighbors were inferior to others, Gilligan fought tirelessly for justice for these brothers and sisters.

In our generation homosexual persons are subject to the same discrimination. Their detractors often use the Bible and tradition as weapons of choice.

Is it not time for religious leaders, walking in the footsteps of Father Gilligan, to do the same for another minority, neighbors who are as responsible as our African American sisters and brothers?

I also suggest that you ask yourselves an important question: If the amendment is passed, will it make one particle of difference in our common culture in Minnesota? I don't think so.

Responsible lesbian and gay persons will continue to seek companionship with those they love. This law will only work to drive many of them deeper into closets of anonymity.

Instead, why not welcome them into our communities of faith where they can work side by side with us as equal partners?

Let me put out a challenge to each of you brothers. Invite 15 gay and lesbian persons from your respective areas, one at a time, to spend two hours with you.

Thirty hours are a pittance compared to the time you are investing to promote adoption of the marriage amendment. Use the time, not for confession, but to listen to them describe what it is like to live in our culture in Minnesota.

Hear as they tell you what it means to be a child of God and a faithful member of your church, persons who happen to be gay or lesbian through no choice of their own. I can promise you, based on my experience, that your heart will be deeply moved by what you hear.

When you have finished your time with these sisters and brothers in Christ, spend a quiet hour reflecting on a single question: "As I understand the heart of my Savior Jesus, how would he treat these sons and daughters of my church?"

Herbert W. Chilstrom is former presiding bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

For Bishop Chilstrom, homosexuality is genetic.    Which is why he refers to "persons who happen to be gay or lesbian through no choice of their own."  But this tired lie has been thoroughly refuted.  See here.  Note too how this confused soul equates the demand for perversion, for same-sex "marriage," with the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans.  It is not discrimination to forbid homosexuals to marry: "The denial of the social and legal status of marriage to forms of cohabitation that are not and cannot be marital is not opposed to justice; on the contrary, justice requires it." (Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, No. 8).

What is most tragic is that a Lutheran Bishop would refer to those who oppose homosexuality on moral grounds as "detractors" who "often use the Bible and tradition as weapons of choice."    Saint Paul assures us that, "In receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God." (1 Thessalonians 2:13).  It is the Church's role to proclaim and safeguard the Divine teaching which comes from the Lord Jesus.  This is why the Church condemns all forms of immorality, especially those which are opposed to the natural order such as homosexuality.

Those of us who are authentically Catholic understand - and appreciate - that the Word of God - in both Sacred Scripture and Tradition - is a priceless gift to be cherished and protected at all costs.  But for Lutheran Bishop Herbert Chilstrom, the Word of God is nothing more than a "weapon of choice" employed by hateful bigots - "detractors."  The Word of God is something which can be watered-down at will or simply discarded when it comes into conflict with the demands of "modern man."

Bishop Chilstrom is a progressive to be sure.  And he has forgotten what - or simply couldn't care less - about what the Word of God has to say to progressives: "Anyone who is so 'progressive' that he does not remain rooted in the teaching of Christ does not possess God, while anyone who remains rooted in the teaching possesses both the Father and the Son." (2 John 9).

On rash judgment and genuflecting before the Eucharist exposed

In my last post, I noted how, "Just recently, I found it necessary to inform my parish priest that his promotion of CCHD in the parish bulletin was most unfortunate as the organization promotes abortion, homosexuality and so-called same-sex 'marriage.' Just yesterday, at Holy Mass honoring the Immaculate Conception, this same priest told the faithful present that they should not genuflect on one knee during Eucharistic Adoration and that doing so is a sign of irreverence. He asserted that Catholics must genuflect on both knees."  This information is incorrect.  The U.S. Bishops have said that genuflection before the Eucharist exposed during Adoration is on one knee.  And the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship has said the same in No. 84 of Eucharistiae Sacramentum which may be found here.

This is most unfortunate.  Not only were the faithful in attendance at Holy Mass [on a Holy Day of Obligation - the Feast of the Immaculate Conception] given information that is incorrect, but it was implied that those who follow the rubrics as set forth by the Church are not showing proper reverence for Our Eucharistic Jesus.  Now the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way.." (CCC, 2478).  And this because rash judgment, as the Catechism explains, "assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor.." (CCC, 2477).

When I wrote the priest in question to inform him about the background of CCHD, I made no assumptions about his motives.  In an email dated November 13, 2011, I wrote: "Good afternoon Fr. ......, Peace of Christ! Let me begin by saying that I really enjoyed your homily this morning. It is obvious that you value truth. And this is saying something today because most people in our society are allergic to the truth. I couldn't help but notice that the parish bulletin contains a little item regarding the 'Catholic' Campaign for Human Development. Knowing your attention to detail as well as your orthodoxy (not to mention how busy you must be), I know this item just escaped your scrutiny.

The CCHD, an organization which was inspired by radical agitator Saul Alinsky, a Marxist who dedicated his Rules for Radicals to Lucifer, whom he called 'the first radical,' is an umbrella and/or a front for various groups which dissent from the Church's authentic teaching. Especially in the area of sexual morality.

According to American Life League's Michael Hichborn, "..no less than fifty organizations (one-fifth of all CCHD grantees from 2009) are, in some capacity, engaged in pro-abortion or pro-homosexual causes." See here: http://www.all.org/cchd

I have a post here reprinting an excellent article from The Wanderer on Saul Alinsky:

http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2005/06/wanderer-on-saul-alinsky.html


Another relevant article on the CCHD may be found here:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10020208.html


In other words, I gave the priest in question the benefit of the doubt.  I wrote him a personal email rather than going public on this Blog because I lacked sufficient foundation to assume moral fault.  What a shame that this priest couldn't find it in his heart to grant the same courtesy to his parishioners who actually attend Eucharistic Adoration (a very small number) and didn't do his homework before attempting to correct what he mistakenly perceived as a fault in these people.

The priest in question made no mention of his mistake in promoting CCHD.  Nor did he admit to giving his parishioners incorrect information pertaining to genuflection while in the presence of Our Eucharistic Jesus - even though I emailed him the relevant information from the U.S. Bishops and the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.

In his classic work Transformation in Christ, Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains that there is a certain kind of man who takes "pleasure in contemplating the defects of others, against which [his] own superiority stands out more glowingly."  Dr. von Hildebrand explains that for such people, "there lives an evil resentment, not against value as such, to be sure, but against the virtues of others, which they experience as a threat to their self-glory.  Although..the merely self-righteous person is by one degree less execrable than the Pharisee, his attitude is still one of the prototypes of all morally damnable conduct and it insults God.  Although Satanism as well as Pharisaism proper remain excluded, self-righteousness makes a person obdurate and void of love to the extent that it takes hold of him." (Transformation in Christ. p. 172).

Now I'm not accusing this priest of self-righteousness.  And, as you may have noticed, I am not mentioning him by name for the sake of charity.  I believe he has many good qualities and he has not been publically dissenting from the Church's teaching.  But I am alarmed that while I have given him the benefit of the doubt, he was so quick to assume as true something about lay persons which was not true: that their genuflection on one knee constituted a lack of proper reverence for Our Eucharistic Lord.

Rash judgment.